


everything's fine (behind closed doors)

by pana (panaceaa)



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Getting Together, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Roommates, Sick Character, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:48:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28279389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panaceaa/pseuds/pana
Summary: Goro stands there, politely looking away as Akira coughs and heaves into the toilet. Despite the circumstances, Goro doesn’t find himself disgusted by the sight in front of him, and instead he’s hit with a wave of restless energy. Consumed by the need to dosomethingand yet infuriatingly unable to doanything. His hands clench into fists so tight he can feel the imprint of his nails in the flesh of his palm.It’s only when it finally seems as if Akira’s finished for the moment, clutching at the rim and trying to catch his breath, that Goro finally speaks.“Why do youinsiston acting like everything is fine when you’re clearly not feeling well?”
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 33
Kudos: 479





	1. Game Night

Goro’s not really sure what twisted series of events in his life led to him staring at a Monopoly board being held in Ann Takamaki’s hands as if it was a threat.

In all logicality he never should have ended up here.

That wasn’t even him being dramatic, that was just common sense. Considering the fact he’d been an actual teenage assassin, and also that he’d attempted to betray both Ann and every other member of the Phantom Thieves who were now grouped around his living space.

Or well, it wasn’t exactly _his_ living space specifically. It was his and Akira’s, since they rented it together...in a completely platonic manner. They were... _friends_ , as strange of a concept that was for Goro to admit to himself. And sharing an apartment was nothing but a chance arrangement to save on money. That was all. It hadn’t been _intentional_. Goro had never _planned_ for it to happen.

Except, after the events of the false reality, when Goro was doing his best to get his life back on track, things didn’t exactly go as he thought they would. At that time he’d managed to track down some members of the Conspiracy and was still doing his best to make up for his mistakes and stand on his own two feet without Akira fucking Kurusu becoming the central heart of his life again. Or at least he _was_ , up until the point in which he literally ran into said center of his life at the train station on a day that was almost exactly one year after they’d last parted. And although Goro had intended to walk as fast as he could the other way- the look in Akira’s eyes had stopped him.

No one...had ever looked at him like that. As if Akira had actually missed him. As if he actually cared.

As if Goro was _somebody_ to him.

And so, when Akira made his way towards him, Goro hadn’t run.

The conversation had been tense at first. Excuses and explanations thrown out into the wind, Goro hoping all the while that one of them might stick. The truth behind why Goro hadn’t told Akira he was alive wasn't simply something he could utter with his dignity left intact, and so Goro used all the conversation skills he had to try to turn the tide of their focus back onto Akira.

As it turned out, Akira had been back in the city for university. And as it also turned out, the two of them would very soon thereafter become roomates because Goro’s heart was a weak pathetic little organ that didn’t seem to care that becoming roomates with the person who he was both terrifyingly in love with and who he’d at one point tried to murder, was a fucking awful idea.

Yet, here he was.

And now it was... _game night_. Game night with the ex-Phantom Thieves. The very people who he’d also attempted to dispose of, not to mention that he _had_ actually killed two of their parents. Sometimes he really wondered if they forgot that he was the one responsible for that.

“Come on, Akechi,” Ann pleads, jostling the Monopoly box so all the cursed little pieces clacked together inside. “Play with us!”

“No,” he says flatly. “I’d really rather not.”

“What do you just not know the rules or something?” Futaba asks from where she was currently busy rooting through their cabinets. Unlucky for her, the only thing she was bound to find was instant ramen and whatever ingredients Akira used to make his coffee and curry.

“I am _familiar_ with how to play Monopoly,” he tells her, a little insulted.

“Then what’s the problem?” Ann asks.

Before he gets a chance to answer, Akira cuts into the conversation.

“What, afraid you’re going to lose?” He asks, looking straight at Goro with that infuriating little smirk of his. He leans forward on the counter, cat-like and graceful as he rests his chin on the palm of his hand and _stares_. Goro finds himself matching the weight of his stare as he bristles with indignation.

“Excuse me?”

Akira shrugs, a small shift of his shoulders from where he was still slouched over the countertop.

“We can’t all be good at everything.”

Oh and _that_ was a challenge if Goro ever heard one. It’s a little surprising since Akira had seemed a little off to him all day today, a little more quiet and reserved than usual. But apparently it must have been nothing, Goro possibly seeing things that weren’t there at all. So, if this was the game Akira wanted to play, then _fine_. Goro _would not_ lose.

His gaze narrowing, Goro turns to Ann.

“I’ll play,” he tells her stiffly.

He catches Akira’s grin out of the corner of his eye, and it only serves to fuel his drive to utterly destroy him in this stupid childish boardgame.

“Alright then…” Ann says, suddenly looking a bit unsure as she looks between them. But then she just rolls her eyes and spins around to place the box on the kitchen table, opening the lid and beginning to take out all the pieces. Haru helps her and the rest of the group files in to sit around the table.

Akira straightens from his position to go join them, and yet Goro notices the way he wobbles a bit as he turns, which is very unlike him considering that Akira was always infuriatingly graceful.

Concern was...a strange emotion.

“Are you feeling alright?” Goro asks while thoroughly inspecting him. His skin seems to have lost a bit of color, and Goro finds himself worried despite all effort not to be.

But then Akira gives him one of his smug little grins and the concern quickly gets overshadowed by pure irritation.

“What? You worried about me?”

Goro’s eyes narrow.

“Dodging the question I see.”

“I’m not-” he sighs. “Yeah, okay, I just have a bit of a headache it’s no big deal.”

Goro finds himself softening a bit under the honesty, the anger draining out of him as he steps forward and eyes him a little more critically.

“Have you taken anything for it?”

“A little earlier, yeah.” Akira shrugs like it really isn’t anything he should be concerned about, although Goro’s not exactly convinced. Yet before he can say as much their attention is grabbed by a call from the kitchen.

“Guys!” Ann says to them. “Are you coming?”

Goro hesitates, not exactly keen on Akira just brushing matters of his own health off as if it wasn’t important, as he always seemed to do. But then Akira is tilting his head towards the others, a gesture that they should get a move on.

“Come on, let’s go,” he says, and Goro knows that it’s not exactly becoming of him to force Akira to sit down and rest over nothing more than a little paleness and a supposed headache. So, with a nod, he finds himself following Akira into the other room, settling in beside him at the table where the rest of the group is gathered.

Goro gazes around the table, catching up on what he and Akira had missed while they lingered behind.

Haru is still busy handing out the money, taking it gently from beneath Morgana’s paws, since he seems to have taken position as banker. Beside her, Sumire looks to be making a very crucial decision over if she should be the boot or the dog piece. And behind her, laying on the floor, is Futaba who seems to have gotten away easy, since apparently _she_ was allowed to sit this one out. Goro would call favoritism and quit this stupid thing if it wasn’t for the fact that he was going to _win_ this.

“This is in American currency, correct?” Yusuke speaks up from his place next to Makoto who is reading through the instructions with such intense focus that Goro wonders if she’s never played Monopoly before or if she was really just that much of a stickler for the rules. “So, that would be…” Yusuke’s eyes abruptly widen as he continues. “I would not have thought they’d allow you to start with so much money.”

“That’s just the way the game’s always been played Yusuke,” Ann says from her spot next to Goro, suddenly sounding very tired.

“Hey, stay away from the money, Skull!” Morgana cuts in with a yowl, swatting Ryuji’s hand away from where he’d been reaching toward the banker’s pile

“You didn’t give me enough!” He shoots back.

“Yes I did!” Morgana argues, fur bristling on end. “It’s not my fault you can’t count!”

“I can count better than you can!”

“Guys seriously?” Ann says with a sigh, grabbing all of Ryuji’s money in a pile and quickly thumbing through it. “Ryuji you have the right amount,” she informs him not three seconds later.

“Hah!” Morgana says, puffing out his chest. “Told you!”

“Yeah, whatever man,” Ryuji mutters, sitting back in his seat and taking his money back from Ann.

“Here, Akechi-kun,” Haru says with a weak little smile, pulling Goro’s attention away from the chaotic scene happening before him. Goro offers her the best smile he can manage in return, one that contains none of the plastic of his old detective prince smile and yet isn’t quite real either, as he takes the money she hands to him. The two of them weren’t exactly the best of friends and they very likely never would be, but she always tried to be kind to him despite what he’d done in the past even if he didn’t think he deserved any of it.

Goro briefly double checks the pile of money he received for accuracy before organizing it into stacks in front of him. When Akira takes his from Haru he doesn’t bother to count it and instead just places it down in one big pile in front of him and continues to silently watch his friends bicker between themselves.

“Did you even bother to check you have the right amount?” Goro asks him, unsure if he was being lazy or if he just didn’t care. Defeating him wasn’t going to mean as much if he didn’t even start with the right amount, or if he didn’t care about the game either way. Where was the fun in winning against him then?

Akira gives a shrug in response. “No, not really,” he says. “It looks like Morgana has it covered.”

Looking back towards the cat who was sitting on top of the money tray as if he was a dragon on his treasure hoard, Goro can’t help but agree.

“He certainly seems to be very invested in playing banker,” Goro notes, watching Morgana swat away Ryuji’s hand again.

“I guess his treasure loving habits never really died,” Akira notes. He pauses, then his lips break into a grin as he turns his full attention to Goro. “You remember when I bought you that bracelet for your birthday last year and he kept trying to stick his head through it?”

As a matter of fact, Goro does remember that birthday well. His last birthday was the first one he’d actually celebrated in a very long time, despite his insistence that Akira just ignore it like he should have. After all, it was just another day. But it’d been the first birthday he’d had while living with Akira, and therefore had inevitably been the first birthday he wouldn’t be spending alone in a very long time. So while Akira had respected his wishes to an extent, he’d still made sure that the two of them and Morgana would do something to celebrate it between the three of them. Akira had baked him a cake, and had taken him out to Goro’s favorite restaurant that was obviously high class and expensive, and at the end of the night he’d quietly passed over an unwrapped box and inside had sat a single silver bracelet. Simple and plain, yet something that clearly hadn’t come cheap.

It had been...the best birthday of Goro’s entire life.

Goro snorts, pushing the annoying pathetic fluttery feeling he gets at the memory back down to the pit of his stomach where it belongs. Idly feeling for the silver bracelet under his shirt sleeve, Goro looks away from Akira and says, “It’s a wonder he didn’t get himself stuck.”

“It wasn’t for a lack of trying,” Akira says, clear amusement in his tone as he turns back to look at Mona. “It’s a good thing he has a big head.”

“In more ways than one undoubtedly.”

Akira snickers.

“What are you two laughing about?” Makoto asks, peeking her head out from the instructions which she’s been holding up as if it were a newspaper.

Akira goes to answer her at the same time the Monopoly box is suddenly thrust in Goro’s direction. “Here, Akechi-senpai!” Sumire tells him with a smile. “There’s two pieces left!”

Goro takes the box from her with a nod and looks to see that the iron and the dog were left, telling him that Sumire had finally settled on the boot. Considering, Goro takes the iron for himself before placing the dog in front of Akira.

Akira picks it up and arches a brow at him. “You don’t want to be the dog?”

Goro’s eyes narrow. What the fuck was _that_ supposed to mean?

“I find their tendency to be stupidly loyal much more fitting for you,” Goro tells him with a smile that’s all teeth.

He’s expecting for Akira to shoot back with something as he usually does, but instead his eyes go unfocused for a moment before he offers a weak smile.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

That annoying feeling of worry enters Goro’s gut again, and he wishes that Akira would get his shit together and stop making him feel like this already.

“Are you sure you only have a headache?” Goro asks him, gazing at him intensely and watching with satisfaction as Akira fidgets under the weight of it. With a glance towards the others, Akira seems to hesitate, as if he’s deciding whether or not he should say something.

“Okay, are we all ready?” Ann asks the group, earning a chorus of agreement, which neither Akira or Goro join into. Instead, Goro silently continues to stare at Akira who finally heaves out a breath and looks at him.

“I’m feeling a little off, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.” He offers another weak smile that does absolutely nothing to calm Goro’s concern. “Don’t worry.”

And while he doesn’t quite believe him...

Goro frowns down at the table in front of him.

Caring about people was stupid and unfairly difficult. He only really has Akira to worry about, and still, Goro was always left wondering if he worried over Akira too much to the point of becoming annoying. Sometimes he really just wanted to chain Akira up to something and hide him away from the world, make sure he was taken care of and always somewhere he could keep an eye on him. It was a fucked up thought to have, but Goro had a fucked up brain and it definitely wasn’t the worst it had ever conjured up in reference to Akira.

Still frowning, Goro silently places the iron on the starting place with a little too much force.

“Alright, then!” Ann says, I’ll start!” Grateful for the distraction from his own head, Goro watches as Ann throws the dice, rolling a grand total of three and landing on one of the brown properties. “Okay,” she says, “I’m buying it!”

She gives the money over to Morgana who happily takes it, and then noses around for the correct property card.

As they wait, Goro looks back over at Akira. He’s sitting with his chin in his hand, half slouched over the table with a section of his fringe laying over his eyes. Still unfairly beautiful, whether he was feeling bad or not. Goro _should_ really hate him. Yet, of course, the only thing he wants to do is brush his fringe back with his fingertips and press his hand against his forehead to see if the skin underneath would be warmer than it should be.

“Alright! My turn!” Ryuji announces, pulling Goro’s attention away from Akira, which is probably for the best. Swallowing thickly, Goro determinedly keeps his gaze locked on the game as Ryuji rolls a seven, placing him on Chance. As Ryuji picks up a _Chance_ card, Goro curses every string of fate that brought Akira Kurusu back into his life because he couldn’t seem to stop _worrying_ and it was fucking pathetic.

“Aw man, I have to go to jail,” Ryuji says, visibly deflating. Morgana gives the feline equivalent of a snort in response, which sounds more like a sneeze, and Ryuji shoots him a glare. “Shut up, cat.”

“I’m not a cat!”

“Oh, it looks like I’m next!” Haru says with an overly polite laugh, as she interrupts their bickering and reaches for the dice. Tossing them onto the table, she rolls a five, which places her on the railroad. “Oh the Reading Railroad!” she says in clear excitement. “I would like to purchase it!” She turns to place the money next to Morgana, and this time he seems to have the cards much more organized since he almost immediately grabs the card in his cat jaws and passes it over in exchange. “Thank you, Mona-chan!”

She then hands over the dice to Sumire who accepts them with a quick thank you. She ends up rolling a three, landing on Ann’s property, and passes to her the miniscule amount of money required.

As the dice get passed over to Yusuke, Goro realizes that he’s not having a terrible time yet. Having to wait for seven other people to take their turns sounded like actual hell, but he should have realized that the ex Phantom Thieves always had a way of making things...interesting. Even if sometimes that factor tinged on the side of annoyance. The more time he spent with Akira’s- _his_ friends, the more he grew accustomed to their presence, and found their petty squabbles and strange quirks more calming in their familiarity than something that made him want to pull his hair out.

It’s with this line of thinking that Goro watches Yusuke throw the dice onto the table as he takes his turn. He rolls for a total of six which lands him on one of the light blue properties.

“Vermont Avenue…” Yusuke reads, his face distorting in disgust. “That’s a simply deplorable shade of blue. I will pass.”

No one tells him that the point of Monopoly was trying to buy as many properties as possible and that decisions shouldn’t be solely made on...color aesthetic, likely because they’re all under the same understanding that it’d be a lost cause. Sometimes Goro found himself admiring Yusuke’s eccentricity for the arts, sure it didn’t always lead him to make the most sane of decisions, but Yusuke always knew what he wanted and went for it despite what anyone might think. No cowardice or overthinking.

Goro once again finds his gaze sliding over to Akira before quickly looking away.

Concentrate, _idiot_.

The dice have now been passed over to Makoto, and he watches as she rolls a four and then sighs in utter defeat. “Income tax...of course. I have to pay two hundred.” She hands the money over to Haru who then gives it to Morgana, the cat taking it within his mouth and probably soaking it through with cat saliva.

And then it’s Akira’s turn.

He takes the dice from Makoto, and Goro finally allows himself to look at him fully once again. Some of the worry finally drains away as he notices that Akira looks almost normal again. _Worrying isn’t going to get you anywhere, idiot,_ he reminds himself. Akira was a fully functioning adult. Goro had already interrogated him on how he was feeling, and if Akira thought he was well enough to play then who was he to stop him? Akira couldn’t possibly be so stupid as to continuing playing if he _really_ felt like shit.

It’s with that thought that Goro watches as Akira rolls a nine, and much like Yusuke, he lands on a light blue property. “I’ll buy it,” he says, quickly counting out his money before passing it over to Mona. He receives his property card in exchange and places it underneath his single condensed pile of money.

Goro rolls his eyes. It was a wonder how Akira ever found anything with his pitiful attempts at keeping things organized.

When Akira turns to pass Goro the dice, he likely catches his expression because his lips tilt into an amused grin. Narrowing his eyes, Goro holds out a hand, and when Akira places the dice in his hand his fingers brush against Goro’s own, causing a pleasant tingle to travel down to the base of his spine. _Pathetic_ , Goro thinks to himself as he slowly retracts his hand and turns back to the table without meeting Akira’s eyes.

Tossing the dice on the table slightly harder than necessary, Goro rolls an eight which lands him on another light blue property. “I’ll be purchasing as well,” he says, flashing a saccharine smile at Akira who could say goodbye to any dreams he might have had about one day putting hotels on these properties.

Akira’s eyes meet his once more, an open challenge crossing through the air between them. Goro feels a wicked grin pulling at his lips, knowing that Akira was finally going to give it his all. Electricity gathers on the surface of his skin, and Goro feels absolutely fucking _alive_.

There was no way he’d lose.

***

About an hour later, most of the board has already been purchased by either Akira or Goro. The others didn’t stand a chance against the pure determination that the two of them had to defeat the other in boardgame-combat. Luck was a meaningless concept in the face of the power of their rivalry. The only hotels that are up are the ones on the green properties at the end that Goro managed to snag all of, and then the dark blue boardwalk properties that Akira, the lucky bastard, managed to claim all for himself.

For a while, under the light of their competition, Akira appeared to have perked up a little. Color returning to his cheeks and the sly edge to his expression every time he did something to purposefully screw Goro over was as infuriatingly attractive as ever. And yet, it’s only now that Goro starts to recognize the same signs he had earlier in the evening as Akira’s face loses some of its pallor and his expressions begin to ebb in intensity.

“You know you want to come visit my boardwalk,” Akira tells him, his grin lacking its normal heat. “We have great hotels.”

 _He’s fucking Akira Kurusu. He doesn’t need you. He’s never needed you_ , Goro reminds himself, ignoring Akira for the moment and doing his best to concentrate on the game. He frowns as he rolls the dice, watching as it gives him an eight, putting him exactly one space away from Akira’s boardwalk property that would have nearly cost Goro half his money.

“It’s probably a hellhole,” Goro says, gracing Akira with a sickly sweet smile. “I wouldn’t be caught dead there.”

“Your loss,” Akira says simply with a shrug, yet again defying Goro’s expectations. He was always so much more- more- _Akira_. He was generally shy around others, but with Goro he talked so often it would have bordered on annoying if Goro didn’t like the sound of his voice so goddamn much. And Akira would have never backed down from a verbal challenge that quickly and easily. He was acting _off_ , and Goro didn’t like it.

As Ann takes her turn, Goro takes a moment to inspect Akira more carefully, not at all liking what he sees. Even while sitting, Akira seems to wobble back and forth a little, as if he’s dizzy and can’t quite get his bearings. He looks as if he’s going to pass out at any moment.

Before Goro gets a chance to say anything, Akira’s eyes widen and he looks a lot like he’s about to be sick as he quickly rises to his feet.

“One second,” he says in a rush. “I’ll be right back.”

And with that, he practically runs in the direction of the bathroom.

Which he does...because he was sick. Because Goro had been right all along and Akira fucking Kurusu had decided to play an entire game of Monopoly while he wasn’t feeling well. That fucking stubborn _idiot_.

As the rest of the group continues the game as if absolutely nothing is wrong, as if they’ve seriously noticed _nothing_ strange about Akira’s behavior, Goro doesn’t know if he wants to laugh or scream. It would be so much easier to handle this if the others had a single fucking clue as to what was going on, but of course they didn’t. Which was probably exactly Akira’s intention, because he was a stupid, moronic, selfless idiot and Goro was going to _kill_ him.

But before that, he now had to figure out how to get everyone _out_ of here first. Because if they stayed, then selfless moronic Akira was just going to keep pretending that everything was fine, just so he wouldn’t _worry_ them or some fucking bullshit. And god forbid they find out that he wasn’t their rock of a leader that he always pretended to be- well Akira would hate that for whatever reason. It’d make him unhappy. And so Goro wouldn’t let that happen, even if he was furious at Akira for pulling this shit.

Rising to his feet, he crosses his arms and puts the full weight of his fury into his expression as he looks down at the group.

“Everyone needs to leave,” he tells them flatly, not giving them any room to argue.

“What the hell, dude?” Ryuji shoots back at him with an affronted glare. “We’re in the middle of a game.”

“And I’m saying it’s over. Unless you’re unaware, you’re in _my_ apartment Sakamoto.”

“What the eff?!”

“Akechi-senpai, is everything okay?” Sumire asks softly, actually seeming to be concerned.

No it wasn’t, but it wasn’t exactly like he could tell them. If they found out Akira wasn’t feeling well that would ruin the entire point of him doing this.

“Akechi?” Morgana asks. There’s open confusion in his expression, but there’s no sign of anger. He out of everyone would understand that Goro was trying to get everyone out of their apartment for a reason, he was just trying to figure out why. Goro can’t exactly answer him, but as he locks eyes with him, he watches as Mona looks away from him to the direction that Akira ran off too, and almost immediately understanding crosses his features.

The personification of humanity’s hope knew what he had to do.

Stepping forward, Morgana promptly sprawls across the Monopoly board, scattering the pieces absolutely everywhere.

“What the hell, Mona!?!” Ryuji yells, standing up as pieces rain down on his lap.

The others all look at him in various degrees of shock and surprise as he stretches out further, destroying anything his initial attack had missed.

“Oh hey,” he says with a contented purr. “Actually, this is pretty great.”

Goro stares at him, knowing that Morgana had just unintentionally discovered another aspect of his feline DNA in his attempt to help him.

“Sometimes he also likes to knock things off our shelves,” Goro tells the group matter-of-factly. It was the truth, and Akira always let him get away with it.

“Only so you can see how dusty they’re getting!” Morgana tells him, his tail slapping against the board and causing more pieces to go flying.

Goro knows for a fact that Akira dusts the place almost religiously so that’s bullshit. But that wasn’t what was important right now.

Straightening his posture, Goro makes sure to look at everyone in the group when he says, “Well I suppose that settles it then. Game night is officially over.” Stepping away from the table he gestures towards the door and finishes with, “Now, if you would _please_.”

For a moment they all just continue to stare at him, as if they don’t understand what it means to get the fuck out of someone's apartment after they’ve asked _nicely_ several times already. But then, this time, his savior comes in the form of Futaba who jumps up from her spot on the floor, closed laptop in hand.

“ _Oh_...I think I get it,” she says, causing Goro to think she might have figured things out, until she gives him a conspiratorial wink that just leaves him genuinely baffled. “Come on you guys, they’re clearly planning to do some stuff that none of us want to be here for.”

Goro stiffly inhales as realization dawns, and he grits his teeth. Akira would probably be upset when he learned that they’d really assumed he’d go for someone like Goro, but Akira could deal with that himself later. For now, this was Goro’s best out, and so he was going to take advantage of it.

“Oh, why didn’t you just say so, dude,” Ryuji says with far too wide of a grin as he rises to his feet. Striding past him to the door, he claps Goro roughly on the shoulder, causing him to nearly fall over with how tensed up he is. “And congrats, man!”

Goro blinks after him, not having expected that reaction in the slightest.

“Wait, I’m a little confused,” Sumire says as she makes her way to the door with the rest of the group.

“I’ll explain later, Sumi,” Futaba says nudging her shoulder with her own. The others offer him a few understanding and supportive looks and Goro finds himself a little overwhelmed, to say the least.

“Alright you guys, be safe,” Ann says, the last one of them to leave. Goro turns his attention to her and she practically beams at him, as if this is the happiest day of her entire life. “You can just keep my board here for now.”

And with that, she too leaves, closing the door behind her and leaving Goro in an utter state of confusion. He pinches the bridge of his nose, not sure how Akira was going to deal with this, but that would just have to be his problem.

“That was kind of weird,” Morgana says from where he’s still rolling around on the board which is now almost completely devoid of pieces.

Goro blinks at him.

“You’re cleaning all this up,” Goro says before turning and heading in the direction of the bathroom. He needed to check on Akira to make sure he wasn’t on the verge of dying.

“Hey!” Morgana’s voice calls out after him. “I helped you and this is the thanks I get!?”

Goro ignores him.

As he approaches the bathroom he hears the distinctive sound of vomiting through the door. Without hesitating, he gives the wooden surface a hard knock and almost immediately all sounds from inside the room cease.

With a roll of his eyes Goro says, “It’s only me, don’t worry.”

There’s a pause, the sound of heavy breathing and light coughing coming through the door, when Akira finally speaks. “It’s unlocked,” he says, low enough that Goro can hardly hear him. Of course, Goro would have come in whether Akira told him he could or not, but still, it was nice to know he was wanted.

Pushing open the door, Goro remains standing in the doorway, crossing his arms while he watches his great rival spare him a quick glance before returning to his prior pastime of throwing up the entire contents of his stomach.

Goro stands there, politely looking away as Akira coughs and heaves into the toilet. Despite the circumstances, Goro doesn’t find himself disgusted by the sight in front of him, and instead he’s hit with a wave of restless energy. Consumed by the need to do _something_ and yet infuriatingly unable to do _anything_ , his hands clench into fists so tight he can feel the imprint of his nails in the flesh of his palm.

It’s only when it finally seems as if Akira’s finished for the moment, clutching at the rim and trying to catch his breath, that Goro finally speaks.

“Why do you _insist_ on acting like everything is fine when you’re clearly not feeling well?” he snaps at him.

Akira winces at his tone, but doesn’t say anything, just reaches over to flush before continuing to stare sightlessly into the bowl.

“I’m okay,” he says like the most stubborn moron on the entire planet.

“You most certainly are not,” Goro tells him, practically seething. “Don’t feed me that bullshit.”

At that, Akira finally turns to look at him. His eyes are watery and his voice is hoarse and shaky when he says, “Please don’t tell them.”

And Goro freezes, all the anger abruptly draining out of him to be replaced with stark disbelief. Was he fucking serious?

But of course he was, because _that’s_ what Akira Kurusu _would_ still be concerned about after all of this. On some level Goro did understand Akira’s feelings, looking weak in front of others was something that Goro would rather be cut open and die painfully than ever do. But Akira was someone who surrounded himself with friends like they were a safety blanket. He’d do absolutely anything for his friends, and yet he wouldn’t even allow himself to be vulnerable around them. The only people he was more honest with were Morgana and Goro himself, and that was probably just because they were around him so much he didn’t really have a choice.

Akira always gave so much, and refused to ask for anything in return. Really, his friends didn’t deserve him. _The world_ didn’t deserve him.

With a sigh, Goro uncrosses his arms and takes a step towards him, leaving the doorframe and formally entering the small bathroom. “I sent them all home already,” he tells him. And yet the relief he’d expected doesn’t cross Akira’s expression, and instead he turns and looks back down into the toilet bowl with a frown.

“I didn’t mean to ruin game night,” Akira voices quietly, like the most infuriatingly selfless idiot on the entire planet. Goro is simultaneously overcome with the need to protect him from anything and everything paired with the desire to strangle him. It makes for a confusing mix of emotions, but that seemed to be a common theme for his feelings whenever Akira was concerned.

“Who gives a flying fuck about-”

His words come to a sudden halt as he watches Akira turn to start dry heaving back into the toilet again. With a sigh, Goro finally gives into his more...pitiful urges, and comes up behind Akira, crouching down to rub at his back as he shakes and heaves. Akira initially stiffens under the feel of his hand, but then leans into it slightly in a way that tells Goro his touch is welcome and encourages him to keep going.

So, he does.

Through Akira’s shirt Goro can feel the dampness of the sweat on his back, and yet he doesn’t find it revolting as he would with anyone else. Quite the opposite actually, which is a thought he shoves to the back of his mind to analyze further at a more appropriate time.

“You don’t...have to...stay,” Akira says between panting breaths when the worst of it seems to be over. Without stopping the slow-moving circles of his hand, Goro shushes him, and when he next speaks it’s with a tone far too gentle.

“You should be aware by now that I refuse to do anything I don’t want to.”

At his words, Akira offers him a weak smile and Goro can’t help but reflect it with one of his own.

Slowly, he moves the hand on his back to Akira’s shoulder and feels him shiver under his palm. He wonders if he might be cold. “Can I get you anything?” He asks in that same soft tone that’s unfamiliar even to his own ears. It’s embarrassing, but Akira doesn’t seem to mind it judging from the way he’s looking at him.

Goro swallows thickly as Akira covers his hand on his shoulder with his own. His warmth is scorching against his skin, as if he’s a star to Goro’s black hole. The only light he can reach in all of the universe, and yet the moment he got too close he’d swallow Akira and crush every bit of light until there was nothing left of him. Such was the nature of black holes.

Squeezing his shoulder once, Goro pulls his hand away.

“I’m okay,” Akira answers him finally, his hand falling back down to his lap. He offers Goro a small smile, but it comes off with a melancholy edge that Goro doesn’t quite understand. “I think I’m done for now.”

Goro nods, and rises to his feet. “Can you stand?” he asks.

“You offering to carry me?” Akira quips back with only a nuance of his normal snark. Still, Goro holds back nothing as looks down at him with a saccharine smile.

“I find that you look easier to drag.”

“Ass,” Akira says with an honest grin that causes Goro’s pathetic little heart to flip in his chest cavity. When Akira attempts to stand he wobbles a bit and Goro’s instantly lurching forward to help steady him.

“Cracking your head on the bathroom sink would be quite the disgraceful death for the ex-leader of the Phantom Thieves,” Goro grits out, his voice turning sharp in his concern. Akira, the fool, of course is undeterred and just gives him a lopsided grin that shouldn’t be as charming as it is.

“It’s a good thing you’re here then.”

“Ah, yes of course,” Goro mutters in response with none of his normal tact, turning his head away to hide his face. He can feel Akira’s gaze on him and it doesn’t help the undignified warmth in his cheeks. It was ridiculous how easy it was for Akira Kurusu to make him blush like a fucking school girl. “Can you at least walk?” Goro bites out, masking his embarrassment beneath agitation. Risking a glance at Akira, he sees that he’s still looking at him with that stupid grin on his face and Goro bristles further. “ _What_?”

“Nothing, darling,” Akira says like a demon in disguise, and Goro nearly chokes at the unexpected pet name. He simultaneously loved and hated whenever Akira decided to flirt with him, it was obviously all part of some game of his and Goro was already in too deep for it to be a fair competition. Sometimes he wondered if Akira knew that and was just doing all of this to fuck with him, even if deep down he knew that Akira wasn’t the type. And yet, it was still _infuriating_ how much power he held over him.

“I hope you don’t trip and fall on your way out,” Goro says, finally turning to look at him with a plastic smile. Then he strides out of the bathroom to the sound of Akira’s quiet chuckling.

Still, despite his words, Goro doesn’t actually go very far. Instead, he waits petulantly outside of the bathroom door just in case Akira really _does_ suddenly topple over. He listens as the sink turns on and he waits for Akira to finish brushing his teeth before he finally steps out of the bathroom, where Goro then wordlessly shadows him into the living room until Akira takes a seat on the sofa. Once he’s settled, Goro heads back into the bathroom to grab the thermometer from the medicine cabinet, and reemerges to hand it wordlessly over to Akira. He complies, taking it from Goro and slipping it under his tongue, and when the minute is up, he reads it silently before raising his head to give Goro a sheepish smile.

“It’s a little over a hundred.”

A little over…

Goro was going to _scream_.

Of _course_ Akira had been sitting there and pretending everything was fine while playing games with the others with _that_ high of a fever. Goro could strangle him. One of these days he’d get Akira Kurusu to take care of himself a _fraction_ of the amount that he did for everyone else.

To distract himself from the quickly rising anger, since he didn’t want to take any of it out on Akira who was looking at him while shivering pitifully on the couch, Goro spins on his heel and stalks away. He makes it his personal mission to busy himself to work out some of his furious energy, first heading in the direction of Akira’s room so he could yank the blanket off of his bed with an unnecessary degree of force. He balls it up in his arms and walks it back into the living room, ungracefully depositing it on Akira’s lap. He takes it with a quiet thanks and immediately works on draping it around himself as Goro stalks into the kitchen. Passing by Morgana, who was working on placing the Monopoly pieces one by one back into the box, Goro goes to the sink and fills a glass with water.

Once he too returns with that, depositing it on the table beside the couch, Goro stands back to look at Akira who has practically buried himself in the blanket, only his nose and the top of his head peeking out, and the last remnants of Goro’s anger fades. It was clear he was still shivering, an obvious result of his high fever, and Goro hesitates, not really sure what else needs to be done. He’d never...cared for a sick person before, and the last time anyone had taken care of him while he was sick was...his mother.

He frowns, a few of those memories, as hazy and faded by time as they are, rise slowly to the surface. It’s blurry, barely there despite all the years he’d tried to cling desperately onto every memory he had of her before it all came to its...end. But he remembers being young, no older than seven, curled up in bed and feeling guilty because he was sick and that meant that he couldn’t go to school and his mother couldn’t work that day since she had to stay home to take care of him.

She didn’t seem to mind though. She smiled at him, warm and loving, as she adjusted the blanket tighter around him. Reaching for the glass of water at his bedside, she encouraged him to take a sip despite his complaints that he wasn’t thirsty. Then she...she…

Goro closes his eyes.

 _“You have to take your medicine, Goro,”_ she’d said. _“I think we have enough for me to make soup, and that might help it sit in your stomach better. Okay?”_

He opens his eyes again.

“You need food,” he says flatly, looking at Akira who was watching him with an unreadable expression.

“...I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep it down,” Akira admits after a moment.

Goro nods and places a hand beneath his chin, considering.

“You’ll need something to help keep down whatever medicine we have for your fever,” he tells him, letting his mother’s actions guide him. “I believe that we should have some here so I won’t have to run to the store…” He pauses thoughtfully, he’d rather not leave Akira alone here. Morgana couldn’t exactly get him off the ground if he fell on the way to the bathroom or something and knocked himself unconscious. “That aside, I’ll make you soup to help keep it down,” Goro finishes, preparing to go into the kitchen and get to work now that he had a plan and knew exactly what he needed to do.

Akira’s voice stops him.

“Goro, last time you tried to cook you nearly set the kitchen on fire,” Akira reminds him, his voice fondly amused.

...He did of course have a point. The last time he’d attempted to cook had come to a particularly disastrous end. His flame had perhaps been turned up a _tinge_ too high, and after he’d been thoroughly distracted with trying to... _fillet_ the fish, his pot of rice had, rather unfortunately, caught on fire.

Suffice to say, he wasn’t the _best_ at cooking. Certainly not as apt as Akira was at it.

Not that Goro would ever admit to that.

Instead, his eyes narrow. “I can make it,” he tells Akira, leaving no room for argument. And before Akira can even _think_ to argue further, Goro promptly turns on his heel and moves into the kitchen.

Once he’s in there, he immediately opens one of the bottom cabinets and takes out the large pot that Akira usually used for making curry. After that’s done, he goes through the fridge and cabinets and takes out everything he’d probably need to make soup. As he’s looking at his collection of meager possible ingredients, he briefly considers looking up a recipe, but ultimately decides against it. Instead, he chooses to make egg-drop noodle soup, since that was light and would probably be easy on Akira’s stomach. And really, how difficult could it possibly be to throw some eggs and noodles into a pot and boil them?

So, he gets to work filling the pot with a good amount of water, then places it on the stove and turns it on high. As he does so, Morgana jumps up on the countertop and eyes the flickering flame with a certain degree of apprehension.

“Are you sure about this?” Mona asks and Goro shoots him a glare in response. He didn’t _ask_ for an assistant.

“No pets in the kitchen.”

Morgana puffs out his chest indignantly, clearly insulted. “Akira never has a problem with it.”

As it were, Akira didn’t seem to have a problem with a lot of things. In Goro’s opinion, he let Morgana in particular get away with far too much.

“You should be keeping an eye on him,” Goro tells him. Because if the cat didn’t have anything better to do, then his time would be much better spent making sure that Akira was doing okay out there instead of silently judging Goro’s every move.

“Why, is he dying?” Morgana asks him far too casually, and for a moment Goro can’t breathe.

The very thought of Akira dying was incomprehensible. Akira Kurusu had defied every expectation and continued living. He’d conquered the metaverse, managed to fool Goro and escaped the interrogation room with his head still intact, had shot a god in the face and helped to tear down an entire false reality. People like Akira didn’t just get sick and die. He couldn’t.

Akira wasn’t _allowed_ to die.

“He’s not dying!” Goro snarls, his nails digging into the flesh of his palm.

“Yeah, I kind of figured,” Morgana instantly rebuttals, bright blue eyes widening in surprise. “ _Relax_.”

At his words, Goro takes a deep breath and attempts to calm himself.

“He’s going to be fine,” he says after a moment, a quiet assurance to himself of what was true. Of what _had_ to be true.

Morgana gives him a long hard look.

“Yeah, I know,” he says flatly. Goro bites into the skin of his lip, and turns back towards the pot as the two of them drift into an uneasy silence. The water doesn’t seem to be _doing_ anything, and he can’t turn up the flame any higher, so Goro looks to his ingredients instead. He grabs the eggs first and has the foresight to crack them into a bowl first since he never had too much luck with not getting the shells in everything.

He ends up cracking five eggs, and manages to only get a few shells in the bowl, which he digs out with his fingers. After that’s done he turns back to the pot and prepares to dump the bowl into it, only to be stopped by Morgana.

“Doesn’t it have to boil first?” he asks.

Goro doesn’t really see how that matters since it was just going to end up in boiling water eventually anyway. So, ignoring him, he dumps the eggs in and earns a feline sigh from Morgana in response. Reaching for the box of noodles, he then dumps that in too, pretending he doesn’t see the disapproving look that might now be etched permanently into Morgana’s face. He was a cat, what would he know about cooking anyway?

Walking over to the pot, Morgana stares down into it along with Goro, the both of them looking at the floating eggs and the noodles that had dropped to the very bottom.

“...That doesn’t look right,” Morgana says, voicing Goro’s thoughts.

Of course, he’d much rather die than admit that.

“Shut up, it’s fine,” Goro tells him instead, shooting him a pointed look that Morgana either ignores or doesn’t notice during his new favorite pastime of apprehensively staring into the pot.

Together they watch as the soup finally starts to bubble, the water finally coming to a boil.

“I think the fire’s too high.”

“It’s _fine_ , Mona,” Goro grits out, turning the burner up to make sure it’s the highest it can go, just to be difficult. He was only boiling water, it didn’t matter how high the flame was. Morgana makes a frustrated noise and backs up from the flame, settling back down on the countertop a few feet away from the stove.

Left to view his creation in peace, Goro does have to admit that it looks...kind of sad. He frowns down at the now foaming eggs and the small collection of noodles sitting at the bottom of the pot. It looks like it needs... _something_. It didn’t look too much like _soup_ yet.

Taking a moment to consider this, Goro comes to the conclusion that adding more noodles might be a good idea. And so he turns and starts rooting through the cabinets in search of another box. It didn’t look as if they had any more at first glance, but Goro was _determined_ , and there was definitely still a chance that a box got pushed to the back somewhere.

During his search, he spots their small collection of ramen and briefly considers if that’d be okay to add into the soup. Ramen was a type of noodle...so it should theoretically be fine...

“Uh, Akechi!?”

“ _What_?” he snaps, spinning around to address the damn cat...only to see that the water was currently boiling over the sides of the pot. “ _Shit_.”

He runs over and grabs for a dishrag, trying to sop up the boiling hot water and burning his hand a little in the process. He ignores the pain, right up until the point that he moves the rag too close to the flame and it catches on fire.

“ _Fuck_.”

“Turn the flame down!”

“I’m a little occupied at the moment!” He throws the towel in the sink and runs water over it, watching as the fire goes out. As soon as that’s done, he rushes back over to the pot with a muttered curse and turns down the burner, the water finally settling down back into the pot.

He stares, trying to get his bearings again. There was the distinct smell of smoke lingering in the air, and Goro really hopes that it won’t reach Akira. If he finds out he almost set the kitchen on fire _again_ , he’d never hear the end of it. Of course...he couldn’t exactly do anything to stop Morgana from telling him the moment he woke up.

“I told you the fire was too high…” the demon cat in question points out, and Goro bites down _hard_ on the inside of his lip.

“...Don’t you have anywhere else to be?” He asks pleasantly, turning to the cat with the full force of his old TV smile.

Morgana gives a feline equivalent of a frown in response, but doesn’t say anything. Instead, he quietly settles back on the counter and with a sigh Goro returns his soup. Pulling a ladle out of the drawer to the right, he stirs the contents of the pot.

It certainly _looked_ like soup. Perhaps not the best soup he’d ever seen, but there were pieces of egg floating along with noodles, so it seemed...fine.

Morgana peeks his head over the pot again. “It looks like it’s missing something.”

In response, Goro wordlessly opens the overhead cabinet and grabs the salt container. Frowning at it, he decides to forgo the measurements since he’s not actually positive how much water was in the pot anyway; and just dumps some in, figuring he’d need a decent amount since it was a fairly large pot.

Scrunching his nose up at him, Morgana says, “I don’t think the salt really made a difference.”

“Shut up.’

Taking hold of the ladle, he stirs the contents of the pot one last time. Looking at it, it seems to be about done: the noodles appeared to be squishy and the egg was... _cooked_. Taking out a bowl from the cabinet, he pours a ladle of soup into it, and then walks it out into the living room.

Luckily, he quickly notes that the smell of smoke didn’t seem to have ventured outside of the kitchen. So, Akira would, at least for now, be none the wiser as to what almost occurred, which is a point that’s only supported by the sight he’s greeted with when Goro takes in the current state of him on the couch. At some point, Akira must have fallen asleep. He’s curled up under the blanket Goro had gotten for him, only his nose and the top of his head peeking out of his large cocoon, and Goro can’t help but smile at the sight. When he draws near, Akira lifts his head and blearily blinks up at him, reminding Goro distinctly of a cat. Akira always was a light sleeper.

“You feeling okay to eat?” Goro asks, settling on the couch next to him.

Akira gives him a small tired smile. “You didn’t have to make me anything,” he says, taking the offered bowl from his hands anyway. “But yeah thanks, I think I’ll be fine with it.”

Of course, the moment he looks down at the bowl’s contents, he makes a strange face that instantly has Goro on edge. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to have actually tried it first before bringing it out, especially if Akira already wasn’t feeling well. In his defense...Morgana had been annoying him. So really, if anything happened, it would be entirely his fault.

After a moment, Akira finally puts a spoonful of it into his mouth. As Goro watches him expectantly, he sees Akira cringe a little and dread sits heavy in his stomach.

He’d fucked it up again.

“It’s...good,” Akira tells him anyway, because of course he does.

“Cut the bullshit,” Goro tells him with a hard look. “What’s wrong with it?”

Akira hesitates, looking distinctly unsure on whether he wants to say anything or not, but then he meets Goro’s eyes and offers him a weak smile.

“...Um well, what did you use to make the broth?”

Goro blinks, not really understanding the question.

“Water.”

“...Yeah.”

Akira looks at Goro as if waiting for him to fill in the blanks himself, and it’s then that it finally dawns on him.

“I forgot the broth,” Goro says flatly, feeling like the world’s greatest idiot. “Fuck.”

“I told you it was missing something!” Morgana speaks up from the floor and Goro barely resists the urge to toss him out the window. It’d make Akira upset, and he didn’t want that.

“I really do appreciate the effort though,” Akira tells him, placing a hand on Goro’s knee. The heat of his palm burns through the thin material of his pants, and Goro tries his best to ignore the pleasant tingles traveling to the base of his spine. “Maybe...we can order?”

For a moment, all Goro can do is stare at him.

...He’s not really sure why he didn’t think of that before.

***

It’s only after the soup is delivered and Akira manages to eat some of it, that Goro finds a bottle of medicine in the cabinet that helps to bring down a fever. Akira takes it without complaint, and after he manages to keep that down, he huddles back under the blankets again. Allowing him to get some rest, Goro puts the remaining soup away for later and straightens up a bit. He dumps the soup that he’d made down the garbage disposal, and washes the dishes since Akira wasn’t going to be doing them anytime soon. Luckily, Morgana did seem to do a good job of cleaning up the Monopoly board, so after he’s finished with the dishes, he puts the box by the door so they’d remember to give it back to Ann the next time they saw her.

Once he’s done with all that, he finds himself exhausted. It’d been a long day and it was after midnight which probably was a sign he should be heading to bed soon. Technically he did have work in the morning, but he had his doubts that Akira was going to be well enough to stay home by himself so he’d probably end up taking a personal day. It was fine, it wasn’t as if he ever used his vacation time anyway.

When he returns to Akira’s side, this time he doesn’t wake immediately, and so Goro taps him lightly on the shoulder. Akira makes a small noise of complaint, the sound far too cute for Goro to stomach, and blinks up at him in confusion.

“Did you want to stay out here?” Goro asks him quietly. “Or did you want me to make sure you don’t kill yourself trying to make it back to your room?”

His question is met with silence, Akira looking completely dazed as he sits there and stares at Goro for several seconds too long.

“...Stay,” he says eventually, and Goro swallows thickly. _He means he wants to stay out in the living room, you pathetic idiot,_ he reminds himself. That’s all he meant.

“Don’t hesitate to call me if you need anything,” Goro tells him while trying to calm the stupid rapid-fire beating of his heart.

However, he’s not sure if Akira hears him because his eyes have already slipped shut again, Goro watching as he buries himself more in the blanket with a visible tremble. In a moment of pathetic weakness, he reaches a traitorous hand forward to touch Akira’s cheek before he realizes what he’s doing and moves to pull the blanket up a little instead.

Then Goro hastily turns and heads back to his room. His own body was now betraying him, which meant he probably really needed sleep. Or at the very least, time to clear his head.

If he had any luck whatsoever, things would be better in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is part one of my secret santa fic for my lovely friend Eri! (@teasnspices) I really hope you like it so far!! And yeah, I decided to combine the sick fic prompt with the idea of a PT Monopoly night that I’ve had for awhile. Please go check out Eri's art of it [here](https://twitter.com/teasnspices/status/1298604821759447040?s=20)
> 
> I would also like to thank my wonderful friend Lotus (@AbsenceofRoses) for being an actual angel and betaing this for me in my last-minute writing panic. ;w; I appreciate you so much Lolo.


	2. The Fever

The next morning, Akira is decidedly worse than he was the previous day.

That’s a fact that Goro quickly discovers when he walks out of his room only to discover Akira violently trembling beneath his blanket in a way that Goro would have considered pathetic if it wasn’t for the way his heart panged with unabashed worry and sympathy at the sight.

Immediately pulling out his phone, Goro sends a quick text to Mitsuru telling her that he wasn’t going to be able to make it in for his training. He quickly types out that it’s for a family emergency, and well, considering Akira and Mona were about the closest thing to a family he had, he at least wouldn’t have to worry about repeating that excuse anytime soon. The response he gets from her is a quick and immediate: _take as much time as you need_. It shouldn’t be surprising really, Goro hasn’t taken a single personal day in his entire time working with the Shadow Ops. He hadn’t even called out that one day he’d been so regrettably hung over that he could barely open his eyes without wanting to dig them out of his skull. But this was...another matter.

Goro looks at Akira still shaking beneath his blanket and sighs to himself before crossing the room to him. By the time he’s standing over him he’s noted the exceptionally pallid appearance of his complexion and the faint gleam of sweat dusting his brow despite how he shivers with the blanket nearly tucked up to his nose. Akira doesn’t wake up immediately when he places a hand on his shoulder, which Goro immediately takes as a bad sign. His eyes only opening blearily after Goro gives his shoulder a light shake.

“How are you feeling?” Goro asks quietly, earning a blank stare from Akira that lasts several moments longer than it should, as if it’s taking a while for his mind to register such a simple question.

“Mmm’cold,” he murmurs at last.

Goro sighs. “I can see that. Here.” He hands over the thermometer, watching as Akira places it under his tongue, and then waits impatiently, his arms crossed and fingers tapping restlessly on his arm, as he waits for the result.

When Akira finally removes it, he squints at the thermometer and takes entirely too long to read it, prompting Goro to mutter, “Give me that,” seconds before he snatches the damn thing and reads it for himself. The moment the number becomes apparent, the worry that follows is quick, virulent, and entirely unwelcome.

“A little over a hundred and two,” he reads, looking up at Akira huddled in his blankets. “It went up.”

Akira gives him a weak little smile. “Sorry,” he says before yawning and sleepily asking, “Don’t you have work?”

Goro doesn’t miss the fact that Akira had apparently felt the need to apologize for having a high fever, but he chooses to ignore it for the moment in favor of addressing his question.

“Not today, no,” he says, leaving out the fact that he had called out, hoping that Akira was too out of it to ask any further.

His luck holds out as Akira only nods slowly in response to his claim before asking almost _hopefully_ , “Then want to watch a movie with me?”

Goro snorts. Ignoring the small flutter of his embarrassingly feeble heart, he says, “I suppose there isn’t a much better use for my time. However, I’ll be the one to choose what we’ll be watching.”

After all, it’d been a fair bit since the last time he and Akira had a movie night together and Akira had yet to really grasp the intricacies of Goro’s favorite show. And the reason that wasn’t a complete friendship breaker was on the account that Akira was...well _Akira_ , meaning he was Goro’s exception to most things. Still, it’d be nice to have another intelligent mind like his to understand the show on a fundamental level so he could properly analyze its intricacies and perhaps debate with Goro about some of the smaller aspects-

“So, we’re watching Featherman,” Akira cuts into his thoughts, and Goro’s eyes narrow.

“Is there something wrong with Featherman?” Goro asks, crossing his arms and bristling in object offense at the amusement lining Akira’s expression. To think that he was still clearly woozy from the effects of the fever and yet he had enough mind to give him shit about his _appreciation_ for Featherman.

“Nothing at all.”

Goro eyes him critically, not quite believing him. “First you need to eat,” he says after a moment, deciding to let his previous comment go.

“I’m not hungry,” Akira professes weakly, hunkering down further in his blanket like an actual child.

Goro would be having none of that.

“You’ll be eating anyway,” he tells Akira with an overly saccharine smile that he hopes conveys the proper threatening aura he’s going for. “You need something in your system before you take that.” He gestures to the bottle of medicine sitting on the side table.

“What if I get sick again?” Akira asks, voice pitifully small in a way that would probably affect Goro more if he didn’t think that his fated rival wasn’t trying to get out of _eating_.

“You’re already sick, that’s the entire problem if you haven’t noticed,” Goro points out with a roll of his eyes.

“Will you feed it to me?”

Goro freezes, his entire mind going blank. The way Akira says it is far too casual, absent of the sly edge that was usually a dead giveaway for when something was most definitely a joke.

“No,” Goro says slowly once he regains control of his words. “You’re perfectly capable of feeding yourself.”

And without another word, he turns and walks stiffly to the kitchen.

Once he’s in there he takes the leftover soup from the fridge and grabs a pot from the bottom cabinet. As he moves to the stove to begin the heating process, Morgana jumps up on the counter in the same way he did the previous day.

“You’re not going to set anything on fire again, are you?” Morgana asks as he watches Goro dump the leftover soup into the small pot.

“Only if I find myself in the mood,” Goro tells him sweetly as he turns the burner on a little past the medium setting.

Morgana gives him an unamused look which Goro ignores in favor of turning his attention to the slowly heating miso soup. His fingers tap restlessly against his thigh as he waits for the contents of the pot to hurry up and come to a boil already. Impatiently, he cranks up the burner to the highest setting. The sooner this fucking thing would cook the sooner Akira could take his damn medicine and maybe lower his ridiculously high fever-

“You’re really worried about him, aren’t you?” Mona asks. Goro’s attention snaps over to him, frowning at the implication. Even if he was currently being pestered by a rather inordinate degree of worry, the cat had no business pointing that out.

“I’m not talking about this with you,” Goro tells him point-blank before returning to watching the soup fail to come to a boil. He wishes the damn stove had a higher heat setting since _high_ apparently didn’t have the capability of boiling such a small amount of liquid in a reasonable amount of time-

“Refusing to answer is the same as admitting it, you know,” Morgana says while looking entirely too smug. Goro glares at him and Morgana deflates a little, his feline expression taking on a much more somber edge. “Well, I just wanted to say that I’m glad he has someone to...do this for him,” he continues and Goro notices that he looks uncharacteristically uncomfortable as he kneads his front paws on the countertop. “I went back home with him for a while and um, I really don’t think he’s ever had anyone do any of this for him before...”

Goro stares at him, not quite sure how to answer. That...couldn’t be right. He knew Akira’s parents weren’t great, an insight gleaned from a few sparse comments that Akira would slip out with before acting as if he’d never said anything at all or that it wasn’t a big deal.

But Akira was _Akira_ , how could anyone, especially his own parents, look at him and not want to take care of-

“The soup is starting to boil over the pot again,” Morgana says flatly, cutting through his thoughts.

“ _Shit!_ ”

***

One near crisis later, the kitchen is still completely intact and Goro has moved into the living room. Akira has since managed to eat the soup Goro heated for him, taken his medicine, and managed to keep the both of them in his stomach cavity where they belonged. Now Goro was just finishing putting in the first disk of his Featherman R Volume 2 Collector’s Edition box-set into the player, which in his opinion is far superior to Volume One although _some_ might disagree. Tasteless idiots, all of them.

As the movie loads up, Goro moves over to the couch to sit, only to find that it’s been entirely occupied by the lean and lanky form of one Akira Kurusu. Since, at some point, he had apparently decided it would be a good idea to sprawl out and take up the surface area of their sofa.

“Move your legs,” Goro tells him while considering the success rate of picking them up and moving them off the sofa himself. Akira was weakened so it probably wouldn’t be that much of a challenge, and yet there would be little victory in that.

His resolve only crumples more when Akira blinks up at him pathetically with his big puppy eyes. “I’m sick and I need the entire couch. Why don’t you just sit here,” he asks weakly, gesturing to the spot in front of him.

Goro looks at him with a fair amount of suspicion, but ultimately decides that arguing with Akira when he was like this wasn’t worth it. With a sigh, he takes the loss and settles down on the floor in front of Akira to watch Featherman.

The familiar opening theme starts and Goro settles in, stretching his legs out on the floor.

This season was one of the only seasons that contained several episodes of Red and Black exploring together without the rest of the Feathermen. As such, it really expanded on the relationship between them which gave them the most main canon evidence for the Black/Red ship. In this particular episode, Red Hawk gets hypnotized by a mechanical bug they’d found when searching through an abandoned research facility. Black Condor tries to talk him down, but when that fails to work they’re forced to fight each other. They are, of course, evenly matched, but Black Condor refuses to attack his rival when he’s in such a state, and so his only course of action is to shock Red Hawk back to his senses. How he does this is suspiciously ambiguous due to the cut away from the duo, but many take it to be an implied kiss scene between the two since when it cuts back to them they’re very close together and Red Hawk is left in a clear state of disbelief.

In Goro’s opinion the two of them had without a doubt kissed. There was no other logical explanation as to how Black was able to snap Red out of it so quickly. Afterward, the two of them act much more shy and unsure with each other, and although the anti Black/Red fans blamed this on the fact that they’d just fought each other- they were wrong.

Goro explains this to Akira as the episode opens up with Red and Black just starting to enter the abandoned research facility. Black is no doubt tense and much more curt than usual the moment they step through the doors, but there’s a determined edge to the way he strides forward without stopping that Goro finds simultaneously admirable and utterly stupid.

He’s in the middle of explaining to Akira how it’s theorized that Gray Pigeon is actually Black Condor, and how Gray had been experimented on in a lab, when his words come to a sudden halt as Akira’s hand brushes against the ends of his hair. Goro’s first thought is that Akira must have moved his arm in a way that made the touch completely accidental, only to have that theory crushed when Akira grabs a portion of his hair and brushes it back behind his shoulder. Goro freezes and doesn’t dare move, his heartbeat a living thing that thrumbs loudly in his ears.

“Your hair is so soft…” Akira mumbles, beginning to card his fingers through his hair in earnest.

Goro tries not to lean into his touch, but finds the repeated action soothing nonetheless. Then Akira drops his hand to play with the tiny hairs at the nape of his neck and Goro’s skin prickles pleasantly at his touch, biting his lip harshly as he trembles.

Through sheer force of will, Goro inhales a shaky breath and allows Akira to continue playing with his hair as he does his best to return the brunt of his focus to the show. He’s just starting to relax a little, watching as Red and Black get closer to the room that houses the mechanical bug, when Akira leans forward from his spot on the couch and nuzzles against the side of Goro’s head like a cat. Goro releases an undignified squeak.

“You smell so good…”

 _Akira has no idea what he’s doing, this is because of the fever,_ Goro desperately reminds himself as his breathing quickens and his traitorous little heart decides to attempt to flutter up his windpipe and choke him.

Akira moves so that his chin is resting on Goro’s shoulder while his other hand continues to run slowly through his hair. Goro closes his eyes, overwhelmed by the sensation, and harshly bites his tongue to prevent any pleased sounds from escaping.

The feeling of Akira’s breath dusts across the sensitive skin of his neck, and the feeling of his fingers gently brushing through his hair feels nice enough that it should be illegal. It’s entirely unfair that Akira can turn him into an attention-starved mess at the simplest of touches, and yet Goro finds himself leaning into him anyway. Akira catches a slight tangle with his fingers, the motion tugging at his scalp, and Goro involuntarily groans at the feeling.

At the sound, both he and Akira freeze.

_Getupgetupgetup-_

Scrambling to his feet, Goro avoids looking Akira in the eye and says, “I think I find myself more in the mood to watch Volume Three. My apologies, I’ll return shortly.”

Then he flees like the most pathetic idiot on the planet. If Akira had been anywhere near his right mind and not half delirious with fever he would have never bought Goro’s act for an instant. He would have seen right through his detective prince facade as he has been doing for years now, probably not long after they first met. It was a dead giveaway and the sloppiest exit Goro could have possibly made. But he’d _panicked_.

“You absolute fucking idiot,” he mutters to himself as he digs out the boxset.

 _None of it means anything,_ he reminds himself. _It’s only the fever._

Someone like Akira could never have honest feelings towards him, and Goro was well aware that their time together as roommates was fleeting. This ridiculous infatuation he had with Akira was something that he needed to destroy, not add baseless notions of fantasies that could never be. One day Akira would find someone leagues better than Goro could ever hope to be, and so it was best not to make it harder on himself for when he was inevitably left alone again.

Returning to the living room, Goro avoids looking at Akira like a damned coward, and switches the disc in the player. To his small relief, Akira has returned to huddling on one side of the sofa, leaving the other side free for Goro to sit. He quickly settles himself there, watching the opening theme start with dedicated focus, and once the show begins it doesn’t take long before Goro starts to relax again.

That is until Akira moves across the sofa from his previous spot and clambers up onto Goro’s lap.

“M’cold.” He says in a way of explanation as he makes himself comfortable, not seeming to notice Goro’s perfect impersonation of a statue. “You’re warm.”

Goro’s pretty sure he stops breathing.

While the two of them are relatively the same height (although Goro knows he has about an inch on him, Akira doesn’t slouch enough to make that much of a difference no matter what he says) Akira has always weighed a bit more. Not much, but Goro’s lean and toned from bouldering and cycling, making his waistline a far bit narrower than Akira’s was. Still, even with Akira being a bit heavier than him, Goro finds that somehow his weight is a pleasant warmth curled against him. It’s one of the first thing his mind registers, quickly followed by the realization of- _fuck. Akira was curled up on his lap like some kind of oversized cat and nothing could have prepared him for this._

When Goro speaks his voice comes out much higher than normal.

“I can get you another blanket-”

“M’fine.”

“Akira,” he hisses as Akira stubbornly nuzzles in closer, “you’re clearly not-”

The words die in his throat, his eyes going wide as Akira moves his head so that his lips end up pressed in the crook of Goro’s neck. There’s nothing particularly intimate or purposeful about the action, and yet the mere presence of the warm plushness of his lips against his skin seems almost obscene. Goro knows that he shouldn’t focus on it. Better yet, he knows he should push Akira away from him. He should definitely push him away, stand up to clear his head, then come back and pretend none of this ever happened.

And yet, because his heart is a weak and pathetic little fluttering thing in his chest, he doesn’t.

Instead, with a deep breath, Goro slowly allows himself to relax as much as he’s able to, settling his arms lightly around Akira. He’s very overheated from his fever, his own miniature furnace, and yet Goro finds the warmth combined with the weight of him oddly comforting. He’s even able to slowly adjust to the feeling of his plush lips pressing against his throat.

At least until Akira’s lips part and he latches gently onto the sensitive skin of Goro’s neck.

Goro releases some sort of half-choked sound that he’s not at all proud of. Akira freezes, and then resumes his slow ministrations with his tongue and lips. Without consciously meaning to, Goro tilts his head back to give him more room and Akira adjusts his position in turn.

His chest is heaving. It feels amazing, without a doubt one of the best things he’s ever felt. One of the best things he’s ever experienced in his pathetic lifetime, which probably goes to say something about how his life has been. And yet, there’s an annoyingly persistent part of him that _knows_ this isn’t right.

He tries hard to remind himself that Akira clearly isn’t in his right mind. This was only the fever. This was only-

Akira’s arms wrap around him, tugging him impossibly close.

“Your waist is so tiny…” Akira murmurs and Goro feels his face heat up even more at the comment. Yet before he can dwell too much on that, Akira’s teeth graze his neck, the only warning Goro gets before he bites down lightly, and Goro _groans_. Akira soothes the spot with his tongue, licking over the bite almost possessively. Goro has never been more turned on in his entire life, he’s getting hard, and this might actually be hell.

Akira makes a small noise in the back of his throat in response and adjusts himself on his lap and it’s then that Goro’s brain starts working enough to tell him he has to stop this _now_ , before he does something they’d both regret.

Ungracefully shoving Akira off his lap and back onto the sofa, Goro gets to his feet and hastily makes his way to the bathroom. Stepping through the door, he immediately shuts and locks it behind him, his hands fumbling in his impatience. By the time he finally takes himself out of his pants he’s impossibly hard and aching.

Closing his eyes, he wraps a hand around himself and bites his fist to stifle his moan. He can still feel the ghost of Akira’s lips on his neck and the dull yet pleasant sting from where he’d nipped at him. As he strokes himself, he imagines those same lips trailing down his throat and traveling lower- _down, down down._

Akira’s intense gray eyes would peer up at him coquettishly as he finally took him into his mouth, the warm wetness of his skillful tongue absolutely sinful.

Goro bites his fist harder to stop himself from screaming out his name as he quickly strokes himself to release. Slumping against the nearby wall, Goro collects himself from what might have been one of the most intense orgasms of his life.

As he takes a moment to recover, he feels the familiar swirl of guilt rear its head for what he‘s just done. It was sick, pathetic, and Akira would no doubt be disgusted with him if he ever were to find out. It’s that sobering thought that follows him as he cleans up and tucks himself back into his pants.

When he moves to wash his hands he notices in the mirror that there’s an unmistakable spot on his neck that’s already starting to bruise. The sight of it makes his stomach twist with abject confliction. He runs his thumb over the mark finding that he likes the sight of it- that he likes that _Akira_ had put it there. And yet, he also fundamentally _hates_ it because he knows that Akira never would have given it to him if he wasn’t half-out of it from the effects of his fever.

Considering his options, Goro decides there’s no use actively hiding it with a different shirt since it was only going to be Akira, Morgana, and himself in the house today anyway. But, in an attempt to at least lessen its noticeability, Goro takes his makeup out of the medicine cabinet and lightly applies foundation over it until only a faint shadow of it remains visible on the pale expanse of his neck.

When he’s done, he takes a deep breath, gazing at his reflection with a mixture of trepidation for what he’s about to do, and open disgust for himself.

 _Fucking pathetic,_ he tells himself in the same way he has so many times before.

Turning away from the mirror, he returns to the living room and actively avoids looking directly at Akira. Without stopping, he heads into his bedroom to grab his notes, and then makes his way into the kitchen.

He busies himself by doing a report that he wanted to have finished by the end of the week. Sitting at the kitchen table, Goro drums his fingertips against his thigh and tries to make sense of his own notes on the page in front of him through the current haze of his mind. Goro knows he should probably be working on this in the living room where he could keep an eye on Akira, but he doesn’t know if he’d be able to handle more of Akira being handsy with him again. It might just destroy him. Which was why he was hiding in the kitchen like the world’s most pitiable coward.

Doing his best to shove everything having to do with Akira in the far recesses of his mind, Goro slowly allows himself to focus on his task at hand. He does a bit of revision on his research paper detailing the evidence that shadows can never really die. He knows it’s not his absolute best work and so he tries _harder_ , wanting more than anything for the Shadow Ops to realize he was giving his all in return for their easy acceptance of him. Mitsuru even knew his past, and yet she welcomed him without hesitation. He needed to do this for them. He needed to fucking _focus_ already. He needed-

“Akechi…?”

Goro shoots up from his seat, looking over towards the entryway only to find Morgana standing there in clear concern. He has no idea how much time has passed in his time actively avoiding Akira, but the look on Morgana’s face instantly has him on edge.

“What’s wrong?”

“He’s having a nightmare I think,” Morgana says softly, front paws kneading on the unyielding floor. “But I can’t wake him up.”

Without pausing to think about what he’s doing, Goro quickly strides past the cat and heads into the living room. The moment he steps through the door Akira’s distressed muttering reaches his ears, but it’s not until he walks closer that Goro’s able to make out what it is he’s saying.

“I’m sorry mom,” Akira murmurs, causing Goro’s heart to clench unpleasantly within his chest cavity. “I didn’t mean to get sick. I promise I can take care of myself.”

For a second, Goro can only stare.

Goro himself was definitely no stranger to nightmares, he’d had his fair share of them over the years that’s for certain. And yet, there’s something about seeing Akira go through one that just feels profoundly _wrong_. Perfect hero of the world _Akira_ wasn’t supposed to get nightmares. Nightmares were meant for people like Goro who had carved their path in blood and wrong choices and were left to suffer the consequences even when asleep. Akira deserved _better_. Still, Goro finds himself reminded of what Morgana had told him earlier in the day, about his suspicion that Akira never had anyone to take care of him. And that instead...Akira had always been left alone to take care of himself.

Sitting beside him on the sofa, Goro gently takes a hold of his shoulder and shakes him. Akira only shivers in response and pushes him away unlike he ever has before- lost somewhere in a dream that Goro can’t reach.

“I’m sorry, mom- I’m sorry,” Akira pleads in his sleep, sounding desperate and vulnerable. The voice of a scared child. “I can stay home alone. I’ll be okay by myself. I’ll be okay.”

As he watches him, helpless and unsure what to do, Goro makes out distinct tear tracks on the pale skin of Akira’s cheeks, and with no small amount of horror he realizes that he’s been crying. Forgetting about any prior discomfort or cowardice that all seems so insubstantial now, Goro leans in closer and gently wraps his arms around him.

“Shh,” he soothes, slowly running a hand up and down Akira’s back, feeling the violent tremors as he shakes in his hold. “None of that, you idiot.” Placing his lips at Akira’s temple he murmurs, “You have me now.”

Almost instantaneously, Akira’s tremoring ceases within his arms. Goro holds him for several moments longer anyway, listening to the evening of his breaths, and when he finally pulls away he realizes that Akira is not only awake but _staring_ at him.

Goro stares back, not really sure what to do. He looks away, embarrassed to have been caught like this. “It’s late,” he says far too quietly, “you should go back to your room tonight.”

Akira doesn’t say anything at first, and Goro is left to wonder if maybe he hadn’t heard him. Yet, before he can either repeat himself or flee back to his room without another word, Akira speaks.

“Will you help me?” He asks, tone soft and fragile in the quiet of the room. Goro’s gaze shoots back to him at his words. “Back to bed, I mean,” Akira quickly adds, probably noting the look on his face, and yet Goro just keeps _looking_ at him in a state of disbelief. Akira gives him a sheepish smile. “The last time I got up I almost fell.”

Goro’s not sure how true that last statement is, but truth or not, one thing that was fundamentally true about Akira Kurusu was that he infuriatingly, stubbornly, _never_ asked for help. Yet here he was, asking for Goro’s help specifically, as if this was something he _trusted_ him with.

Swallowing thickly, Goro responds as calmly as he can manage.

“I already offered before, didn’t I?”

Akira gives him a smile that seems a little too real and honest to be the fault of the fever alone.

 _Don’t be an idiot,_ he reminds himself. _Fooling yourself will only get you hurt in the end._

Without meeting Akira’s eyes, he stands and extends a hand to help pull him up from the sofa. Akira takes it within his own, the feeling of the heat of his palm both thrilling and comforting on a base level he can’t really understand. The moment Akira is on his feet, Goro releases his hand, and together they walk to his room, Goro shadowing him closely in case he decides to take a nose dive for the floor. But although Akira does seem a bit unsteady on his feet, wobbling a few times, they manage to make it to his room without incident. Akira makes a beeline for his bed, Goro following him for those last final steps of their small journey until Akira safely gets himself situated on his bed.

“Thanks for the escort,” Akira says, looking at him through his lashes like a fucking menace, and Goro bites harshly on his own lip in an attempt to calm himself.

“It was no problem,” he mutters, turning and planning to bolt back to his room where he could dissociate and maybe sort through some of his thoughts, only he’s stopped by a hand latching onto his arm. His gaze takes in the sight of Akira’s fingers against his skin, before he follows the appendage up to Akira himself who’s looking at him with an unreadable expression- something soft and vulnerable that causes Goro to steeply inhale.

“Stay with me?” Akira asks, looking absolutely pitiful. The fingers around Goro’s arm are warm but lax, a sign that Goro could pull away and Akira wouldn’t stop him. He knows that he _should_ turn around and walk out. This was dangerous territory, so ridiculously fucking stupid for him to even be considering. And yet, Goro’s heart is a weak and pathetic little organ that cares nothing for logic and instead pulses with pure temptation at the very prospect of sharing a bed with Akira.

 _It’s not as if you’ll ever get this chance again,_ something wild and desperate within him says. Goro stares at the almost pleading edge to Akira’s eyes and he makes a choice.

Stiffly, Goro settles onto the bed beside Akira, and Akira gives him an embarrassingly dopey smile that has Goro flustered from the action alone, proof of the fact that this was a fucking awful idea. And yet, he knows he can walk away no more than a planet can turn and leave the orbit of the sun.

Akira shifts as close to the wall as he can, leaving Goro as much room as possible. Still the bed isn’t big, meant only for one person. So, in order to make it so half his body isn’t hanging off the end, Goro has to move in close. There’s a soft and relaxed look adorning Akira’s expression as Goro settles in under the thin blanket, a contentedness that Goro finds himself mirroring the best he can as he allows some of the tension to drain from his body.

Lying there in his bed with him, the heat and smell of Akira is overwhelming, both comforting and utterly intoxicating. And when Akira adjusts his position the skin of his hand brushes Goro’s arm, causing him to jolt as if he’s been burned. Akira doesn’t seem to notice, just nuzzles into the pillow, eyelids slipping shut and quickly falling asleep.

Goro lies there for a little while longer. He listens to the steady and constant rhythm of their breaths filling the silence, and allows the familiar scent of Akira to wrap around his senses like an old favorite blanket.

It’s not long before Goro feels his own eyes grow heavy and sleep claims him as well.

***

Goro wakes up in the middle of the night, mind hazy from a dream he can’t quite remember.

It’s still dark, but in front of him he can make out the shape and form of Akira, his face only a foot away from his, still fast asleep. There’s a warm weight over his side and Goro realizes that at some point Akira had draped an arm over his waist, moving closer in the process.

In his sleep-addled state, Goro finds himself mesmerized by the gentle slope of Akira’s nose and the plushness of his lips. There’s a warm feeling in his chest that is familiar but no less terrifying than the first time he felt it a small lifetime ago. He’d tried to deny it for so long, but there’s only so many times a person can try to escape the light of a star before they realize that it’s ultimately fruitless.

There’d never be a day where Goro Akechi wasn’t completely in love with Akira Kurusu. It was a fact. A truth that was impossible to deny.

He reaches forward and places a hand on Akira’s cheek, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath his fingertips. Akira doesn’t wake, and Goro watches him in the dim moonlight drifting through the window, thinking that he might just be the most tragically beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

Content in a way that he never thought he’d know the feeling of, Goro snuggles in closer to Akira and finally allows sleep to take him once more.

***

It’s mid-afternoon by the time Goro wakes up again.

He knows that because the light coming in through the window is far too bright and makes him want to shove his face farther into his pillow. Except this wasn’t _his_ pillow, a fact he only dimly registers when his sleep-heavy mind catches up with the mixture of sight and feeling. He was in... _Akira’s_ bed. Which is a reality he’s forced to confront when he peeks up only to find Akira awake and staring down at him.

... _Fuck._

“Good morning,” Akira says and Goro stares up at him in a daze. “I’ll have you know I’m feeling much better.”

The arm that Akira isn’t supporting himself with is resting over Goro’s waist. An action he probably did purely out of comfort sake since at some point Goro had apparently snuggled up to him so much in his sleep that Akira was essentially trapped between the wall and his body. He had Akira’s leg pinned between his thighs, and belatedly Goro realizes he’s half-hard as if he’d been-

Eyes widening in panic, Goro quickly yanks himself away from him.

_Fuckfuckfuck._

He’d _known_ this had been a fucking stupid idea. Pure mortification pulls at him as he regards Akira with eyes blown wide, trying to figure out how the hell he’s supposed to talk his way out of this one. Here he’d gone and latched himself to him while Akira had been sick with a fever and vulnerable- who the fuck did that?

Akira didn’t seem bothered but he was always too damn forgiving for his own good, and there’s no way he could walk away from this without thinking he’d been taken advantage of by the one person in his life who swore he’d never do that to him.

“Goro…?”

The way that Akira’s looking at him is distinctly uncertain, and it tugs on something deep within Goro’s gut. Taking a deep breath, Goro straightens in his sitting position and thinks of a way to fix this fucking mess.

“I didn’t take advantage of you if that’s what you’re thinking,” he tells Akira. “You practically dragged me in here last night, I had no choice.”

He finds that the anger is easier, but it’s directed at himself, not Akira, and he hopes he realizes that.

“Goro, it’s okay. I would never think that-“

“I’m perfectly content to ignore this ever happened for the sanctity of our friendship,” Goro continues, cutting Akira off before he can come out with some half-truth to make him feel better. Goro was the one who fucked up here and he wasn’t about to be _coddled_ and _pitied_ because of his own weakness.

“What if I don’t want to ignore it,” Akira says, gaze intense as he throws a damn wrench into Goro’s plan for a quick solution. Goro’s heart attempts to crawl down to his stomach and die, the pain in his abdomen feeling a lot like he’s been punched. Akira’s eyes go wide and he quickly backpedals. “That’s not what I meant,” he says in a rush. “Goro, I want us to be more than friends. I’ve wanted it for a while because I’m…” he visibly swallows. “I’m in love with you.”

All at once, Goro’s entire world stops. It’s exactly what he always wanted to hear, and yet it’s also something that existed on a plain of impossibility for so long that he couldn’t believe it if he tried.

 _He’s pitying you,_ a voice in his head supplies and Goro’s eyes narrow.

“You’re fucking with me.”

“What?” Akira asks, to his credit seeming honestly baffled.

“You found out I had feelings for you and now you’re making a fucking joke out of it,” Goro says, crossing his arms and refusing to drop his gaze from where he’s boring into Akira’s own, needing him to realize that this wasn’t some damn _game_ to him and that he should drop the act already.

“So...you do have feelings for me?”

Goro wants to fucking throw his head back and _laugh_ , because this entire situation was completely ridiculous and Akira was either dedicated to this little act of his and was sticking to this offer he’d made out of pity- or he was just honestly that stupid.

“Of course I do, you idiot!” He snaps, finally standing from the bed in preparation to make a hasty exit if necessary. “As if it hasn’t been obvious. You can’t tell me you’re only figuring it out now.”

“I only suspected starting yesterday,” Akira says, his voice surprisingly soft and honest. “You...said I didn’t need anyone else because I had you.”

“You heard that,” he says flatly.

“I did. Goro, _please_ ,” Akira says, his eyes and tone both taking on a pleading edge. “You know I’d never joke about this.”

And Goro hesitates, considering. Akira really...wasn’t the type to make a game out of something with this much gravity and weight. It still seemed like an impossible concept, incredibly stupid to even be considering, and yet Akira didn’t appear to be lying.

“You’re...serious?” Goro asks him, still eyeing him a bit skeptically.

Akira smiles weakly. “Is that really so hard for you to believe?”

“I tried to kill you,” Goro reminds him in case he forgot that little tidbit about their past and why it was fucking insane for Akira to... _love_ him despite that.

“That was a long time ago,” Akira says with a casual shrug, as if he was talking about some ordinary past grievance and not his own murder. “I wouldn’t have offered to be roommates if I didn’t completely trust you.”

Meeting Akira’s eyes, Goro impossibly finds himself believing him. Any remaining petulance drains from his system and is replaced with a jumbled and confusing ball of emotions that leaves him half wanting to turn and bolt, and half wanting to pull Akira against him until they’re no longer sure where one of them starts and the other begins.

Looking at Akira’s face and seeing all the open vulnerability he’s allowing himself to show, Goro takes in a deep and shuddering breath before slowly climbing back onto the bed.

“I must be absolutely insane,” Goro mutters more to himself, staring at the way Akira’s regarding _him_ as if he’s the best thing he’s ever seen in his life.

Akira’s lips tilt into a small smirk, his fingertips ghosting against Goro’s cheek as he leans in.

“If it makes you feel any better,” he says softly, his breath fanning across Goro’s lips. “I pretended to be more sick and out of it than I was so I could get closer to you with plausible deniability.”

“You _what_ -“

Then, Akira kisses him.

Suddenly Goro no longer remembers or cares what he’d been upset about seconds before. The feeling is something akin to brushing his lips against the sun. Something bright, warm, and far more strong and beautiful than he ever thought he’d get the chance to know. Goro parts his lips with a low keening sound and clutches at Akira’s shoulders, his fingertips digging into his skin. Akira releases a breathy noise that sounds a bit like laughter, but then he leans back in and Goro couldn’t give two shits as his every nerve ending alights. His every fantasy suddenly comes merging with the reality of kissing Akira, and he finds that somehow it’s _better_ than anything he could have imagined.

When they part, it’s only for Akira to fully cup Goro’s cheek in his palm. “I love you,” he repeats, tone achingly gentle.

More than a little overwhelmed, Goro’s only feasible response is to lean back in and kiss him again.

This time, the kiss is softer. The slow slide of their lips making him feel as if his very essence is being drained from within him and remade into something new. Something better. Goro whines into the kiss, feeling too much in a way he’s not even sure how to handle.

Pulling back to breathe, it’s with mute horror that he realizes that his eyes are welling up with tears. Before he can properly hide his face, Akira notices- because _of course_ he does.

“Shh, sweetheart, it’s okay,” Akira says, “Come here.” Goro trembles at the endearment, falling onto his chest and hiding his face into the crook of Akira’s neck. Akira runs his fingers through his hair again and the action is as soothing as it was before. Goro finds himself grasping desperately at the loose material Akira’s shirt, pressing impossibly close to him.

 _Mine_ , his mind supplies. Akira Kurusu was finally _his_.

The thought is dizzying, a concept so world-altering he can’t quite wrap his head around it. Perhaps it was...a little too dizzying. Squeezing his eyes shut, Goro attempts to bury himself closer to Akira, only to stop when the butterflies rolling in his stomach turn a bit too virulent and a degree of nausea suddenly hits him.

He lifts his head from Akira’s chest only to be hit with a moment of vertigo that leaves him blinking dazedly.

“Are you okay?” Akira asks him in concern, clearly finding something off in his expression.

“I’m fine,” Goro tells him anyway.

“Liar.” Akira says fondly, reaching forward to feel his forehead. “You’re warm.”

There’s unmistakable worry in the way Akira’s looking at him, but Goro _couldn’t_ have caught Akira’s illness this quickly... At least he’s almost certain. Yet, thinking through their activities for those past two days, Goro becomes distinctly aware that if Akira had been even the slightest bit contagious there was no chance in hell that Goro hadn’t caught it.

_Fuck._

“It’s only been two days,” he tells Akira, albeit knowing it’s a weak defense.

Akira shrugs. “Apparently it’s been long enough for it to settle in your system. I always do say that you need to eat more.” He offers him a small smile, pointedly ignoring Goro’s hard look. “Want me to make you soup?”

Goro groans in response and falls back onto the bed.

Akira’s head comes into his vision, blocking the sight of the ceiling above. With a fond little tilt of his lips, Akira gently places his palm on the side of Goro’s face, stroking his cheek with his thumb and leaning down to kiss him- quick and chaste. It’s achingly sweet and gentle in a way that causes Goro’s stomach to erupt with those annoying little butterflies.

“I’m pretty sure we’re at least feeling equally shitty now,” Akira offers him a bit sheepishly once he pulls back. Goro narrows his eyes at him.

“This is all your fault.”

“Hey, for all we know I could have passed it to you before I started showing symptoms,” Akira says matter-of-factly and Goro knows he’s right but hell if he’s going to admit that. So instead, he just glares petulantly. Akira grins and ruffles his hair, and anyone but Akira had tried that they might have lost an arm, but somehow Goro doesn’t mind the childish gesture if it means Akira’s fingers end up in his hair again. “Now come on,” Akira continues, sitting up again to Goro’s immediate disappointment, “I’ll show you how to make soup before you’re completely out of commission.”

“I’m just going to set the kitchen on fire again,” Goro points out, more than a little skeptical.

“Not with my help you won’t. We always make a good team.“ He grins and something distinctly proud and pleasant swirls in Goro’s chest at the sentiment, at least until the next words leave Akira’s mouth. “Unless...Maybe I’m always going to be the only one able to cook around here.”

Goro stiffens, sitting up and regarding Akira critically.

“What are you trying to say?”

“Nothing,” Akira says with an overly casual shrug. “Just that there are always going to be some things you’re not going to be good at.”

Pursing his lips, Goro places a hand under his chin as he considers his.

If Akira could cook then it stood to reason that Goro needed to become his equal in this too. He’s not sure why he never thought of it before, but if they were actually going to enter a relationship together then they would need to be equals in everything, Goro wouldn’t stand for anything less. And with Akira’s expertise in cooking, they could become a truly formidable team, able to conquer any of the culinary arts.

“We’re going to make the best fucking pot of soup you’ve ever tasted,” Goro tells him decidedly, watching as Akira’s lips tilt into a small smirk.

“Are we now?”

Goro matches his expression with a devious grin of his own and leans in close.

“Chefs everywhere will cry because they’ll know that they’ll never be able to compare with their pathetic attempts.”

Akira quietly laughs at him, his eyes radiating clear amusement as he leans in and kisses him again. Smiling against his lips, Akira says with exquisite softness, “They won’t stand a chance.”

(The soup turns out good and the kitchen does not burn down.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my incredibly late second chapter of my secret santa!! I'm so sorry Eri, but I hope you enjoyed this nonetheless?? (': 
> 
> Thank you for reading and all kudos and/or comments are appreciated!!<3
> 
> You can find me on Twitter~  
> @pana_pancake


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